Monday, October 02, 2006

weekend with friends

October 2

I like to lie low on weekends to recover from the general insanity of the work week. But this weekend began with drinks with work colleagues at the Fitzpatrick hotel (truth be told, I guess it really began with Friday's long lunch at Del Posto with egg man Howard Helmer, goose man Jim Schiltz, and excellent person and Food & Wine executive food editor Tina Ujlaki; the staff at Del Posto would not let us eat Jim's smoked goose breast in celebration of Michaelmas, possibly dooming us to financial hardship in the year to come).From the Fitzpatrick I headed to Grand Central Oyster Bar for the Oyster Frenzy, where I downed oysters and white wine with my buddy Clark Mitchell, who works at Travel + Leisure. After a couple dozen oysters Clark felt a need for carbohydrates and we repaired to Therapy for chicken nachos, non-frenzied conversation and bourbon. Clark did his first TV interview on New York 1 a couple of weeks ago. I missed it, but he said it was kind of a fun thing to do. He should do more, he has a face for television.Saturday night I found myself in Midtown with New York Times scent critic Chandler Burr, who presented me with a bottle of a Guerlain eau de toilette that he likes (so do I; I'm wearing it now, in fact). We took the subway to Williamsburg and then walked up Bedford to Greenpoint, where we were meeting Howard, his partner Tom, and connections-maven Arlyn Blake and her partner Sal, for Polish food at Lomzynianka.Have I mentioned that Howard holds the record for the most omelets made in half an hour? I believe it's 472. He admits that some of them were a little runny.Chandler and I closed off the night in Williamsburg, judging hipsters as they exited the L train. Then on Sunday it was dim sum in Chinatown with Kenny Lao, who owns Rickshaw Dumpling Bar. We ate at Oriental Garden, on Elizabeth St., and then went for a stroll. On Canal St. we were stopped by tourists who wanted to take a picture of Kenny. They recognized him from when he was featured on the MTV show First Year. Kenny says that happens a lot.

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About the Author

Bret Thorn

Bret Thorn is senior food editor of Nation’s Restaurant News with responsibility for spotting and reporting on culinary trends. He joined the magazine in 1999 after spending about five years as a journalist in Thailand.

A graduate of Tufts University in Medford, Mass., Thorn also studied French cooking at Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine in Paris. He studied in China for a year, too, and now lives in Brooklyn.